


at the other end of the line

by astudyinfic



Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: M/M, Ty is sad, Zane tries to help, after Nick's call to Ty, author can't keep their own feelings out of it, during Cross & Crown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27149552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astudyinfic/pseuds/astudyinfic
Summary: The last time they really talked was in Scotland.  Even after that call, that is still the case.And Ty doesn't know what to do to make it better.
Relationships: Ty Grady & Nick O'Flaherty, Zane Garrett/Ty Grady
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	at the other end of the line

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I've never really made a secret of my dislike of Nick, so the fact that he doesn't come off in the best light here shouldn't be a surprise.   
> 2) I played fast and loose with the canon. Tried to keep it canon-compliant but it got a little away from me at points.

Ty stared at the phone in his hand, long after the call disconnected. He'd dialed the number so many times with no response that it had been a surprise when Nick called him right back. For a brief moment, he had hope. 

Hope that they were finally starting to put the past behind them. Hope that Nick was on his way to forgiving him. 

But when Nick ended the call long before Ty was ready to stop talking, he knew that his best friend still hated him. Or at least didn't want to deal with him. 

Part of Ty understood why. What he'd done felt like a betrayal and he knew it. But what would they have had him do differently? Did they want to be a mercenary group for the rest of their lives, always on call, always going to the worst places under less than moral rationales? When the choice was to doom the best friends he'd ever had to a life in the shadows or to make as clean a break as possible, he made the only choice. It hurt him too. They didn't seem to realize that. Ty loved being a Marine. It was everything to him and then one day it was gone and he had to find a new life outside of the only identity he'd ever had as an adult. 

Of all of them, Ty thought Nick would have his back. Nick knew him better than anyone else, with the possible exception of Zane but he wasn't even sure about that. Nick would have understood that Ty faced an impossible choice and made the best one he could. He could have told them sooner, let them know why everything had happened but it didn't seem to matter. Either way, it wouldn't have changed things. They would still be out of the military only then they would know he was the reason for it. 

But Nick blamed him more than anyone else. Owen had always worn his emotions for all to see. It wasn't surprising when he was angry because anything could make that man angry. Nick was solid, though. He was the rock which Ty's ever-changing moods bounced off of. Nick would take a swing, get it out of his system, and then move on. 

This time, though, he wasn't moving on. And Ty didn't know what to do. This was the only time he'd talked to Nick since Scotland and Nick wouldn't acknowledge the elephant in the room. So Ty was left staring at his phone and wondering if his best friend was lost to him forever. 

"Doll?" Zane called from the kitchen and Ty sighed, rolling his shoulders back to not worry Zane any more than he already was. Zane carried too much weight for the both of them. His job wasn't easy. The mole was still out there. Ty was no help, bored out of his mind at home. And Zane had told him that Nick and Kelly called a day earlier to ask about getting in touch with Cross. They could have called him - their teammate, their _brother_ \- but they didn't. Ty didn't want Zane to know just how much that hurt. 

He slipped his phone back into his pocket before stepping into the kitchen. "Who was that?" Zane asked. 

Ty couldn't find it in himself to lie. He'd been lying too much in his life and if anyone deserved total honesty, it was Zane. "O. Guess he needed help with a case." Though, now that he said it, Ty didn't think that was exactly right. Nick hadn't specifically asked for help, hadn't even mentioned the case at first. But he also didn’t want to talk about them so it was the only thing Ty could figure. 

"Same one he called me about?" 

Nodding, Ty sat at the bar in the kitchen, head in his hands. "Couldn't identify the John Doe's accent. To be fair, it isn't one he would encounter much in Boston anyway, so not a surprise he'd never heard it before." Zane raised a brow and Ty gave him a sad smile. "Tidewater. Coastal Virginia. Or as Nick put it 'like your accent with a curlicue'." 

Zane laughed and pulled a far more genuine smile to Ty's lips. "So you told him what the accent was?" When Ty nodded, he continued, "If that was all, you'd look happier than that. You've been dying to feel useful that last few weeks. So what else?"

“I asked if we were closer to even now. He told me he can’t deal with it and then hung up.” 

Ty hated whining. He didn’t do whining. The world sucked and that was just the way it was. But, at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to curl up and whine until things started to get better. He didn’t know how to fix things and he didn’t know if there was even a way to fix things. All he knew was that the best friend he ever had was no longer in his life and he didn’t know what he would do if they didn’t fix whatever was wrong with them.

“He’s mad because of Eli. Blames me for his death. He’s mad because of all the lies, though he more than anyone else should understand that. Fucking white knight complex. He goes in there and attempts to sacrifice himself over and over again and that’s fine. I try to save my brothers from a life under the government’s thumb and I’m suddenly the villain in the story. I don’t understand.”

Zane came to sit next to him, taking Ty’s hand in his own. “Any chance he’s mad that you stole his thunder?”

“What do you mean?” That didn’t make sense but Zane really was the smartest person Ty knew. Plus, he was emotionally compromised. That probably would have made more sense in other circumstances.

“What I mean is, Nick has spent his entire life protecting people, right? Taking the blows - both physical and emotional - so other people don’t have to. And this time, you take the blow for him. You step up and make the hard decision and suddenly he’s on his back foot, not sure how to handle being the protected instead of the protector.”

He sort of had a point. TY didn’t think that was all of it but probably deep down, there was some feeling of being replaced. As if anyone could replace him. They each had their role on the team and each one was irreplaceable. Zane could sort of fill the gap left by Eli but he would never fit in there completely. The team was broken when they lost him and just continued to splinter. Ty had been their team leader but he was fuck out of ideas. 

He gave Zane an inarticulate shrug. “Maybe. I just feel like there is more and I don’t know what it is. He’s hidden so much from me, just as much as I hid from him, even if it wasn’t as important. The thing with Doc showed me that. He did things on our last deployment...”. Ty shook his head, trying to find the words to tell Zane what he was thinking without disclosing classified information. “Something happened to him, something different than what happened to us. We all have the same clearance. There is no reason he can’t tell us what happened but he’s not saying anything. I would guess not even Doc knows since apparently, he’s the most important person in Nick’s life now.”

Ty wasn’t bitter. He wasn’t. They both deserved some happiness in their lives but Ty already missed the closeness with Nick and now to know Nick was telling all the things he used to tell Ty to Kelly, it hurt a little. “Maybe it’s just irreparable and I need to move on. I’ll give him some space. Stop calling and texting every day. I guess we’re never going to be the way we were and it’s time I accepted that.”

Sighing, he looked down at his hands, not wanting to see the pity on Zane’s face. He couldn’t handle that right now. His nails were chipped and his fingers rough from all the work at the bookstore. He probably looked like hell and was thankful Zane hadn’t pointed that out yet.

“Bullshit!” Zane’s exclamation had his head snapping up. “I may have never had a friend quite like you and Nick but I know there is nothing irreparable there. Unless he has some new deep dark secret, you two can work it out. You’re trying to apologize so it’s time for him to pull his head out of his ass and talk to you like an adult.” 

Ty would never get used to Zane’s fervent defense of him in all things. Even when they were angry with one another, he knew he could count on Zane when their backs were against the wall. A smile tugged at his lips. “And what makes you say that?”

“Because I know you, Ty Grady. You did what they trusted you to do. To make the hard decisions as their team leader and keep them safe. If they are half the Marines you are, then not a damn one of them should be complaining about that. Yes, you should have told them sooner but nothing you can do about that now. You apologized. For all of it. For the lying, for the discharge, for Bell. So either Nick is being unfairly stubborn in not even giving you a chance to talk or he is keeping you at arm’s length for a reason.” Ty’s eyes widened as he started to realize what Zane was implying. “Something to do with your last deployment, maybe.”

It all made sense. He really was more emotionally compromised by this than he realized. Nick just kept making him feel guilty about things that they should have been past now. And Nick wasn’t one to hold a grudge that long. “What the fuck is he hiding?”

At that, Zane shrugged. “Hell of I know, but you have a lot of time on your hands. Maybe you can look into it.”

“Investigate my best friend?”

“More like, pull at some loose ends and see what unravels. I’m trying to do that at work with our mole. You do that here with O’Flaherty. Sooner or later one of us is bound to come up with something, right?”

Ty kissed Zane, his hands cupping his lover’s face. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Meow Mix. Whatever he’s hiding is probably big but you two can work through it. I have absolute faith in that.”. Zane stood and offered Ty’s his hand. “Now, we’re going to bed. We _both_ have work to do in the morning.”

Whatever Nick was into, Ty would help him, whether his friend wanted it or not. White knight complex be damned. If Nick O’Flaherty was walking into a firestorm, then Ty Grady would be right there with him. Even if Nick didn’t want him there. 

Maybe especially if Nick didn’t want him there. 

But first, Ty needed to figure out what the damn firestorm was. He had no idea but he had a feeling that when he found out, he wasn’t going to like it.


End file.
